> Terra preta [...] is a type of very dark, fertile artificial (anthropogenic) soil found in the Amazon Basin. [...] Terra preta owes its characteristic black color to its weathered charcoal content,[2] and was made by adding a mixture of charcoal, bone, broken pottery, compost and manure to the low fertility Amazonian soil. A product of indigenous soil management and slash-and-char agriculture,[3] the charcoal is stable and remains in the soil for thousands of years, binding and retaining minerals and nutrients.[4][5] [...] Terra preta soils were created by farming communities between 450 BCE and 950 CE.[10][11][12] Soil depths can reach 2 meters (6.6 ft). It is reported to regenerate itself at the rate of 1 centimeter (0.4 in) per year.[13]
First paragraphs on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta
Hancock has a gift for pointing out deeply fascinating aspects of human history. His personal conclusions based on things he brings up include things like advanced, pre-historic civilizations. Regardless of whether you care for those kinds of claims, I think it's almost undeniable that the tidbits he brings up in his discussions, like terra preta, are a real treat to read about. For any fan of history or intellectually curious person, I'd recommend at least watching a video or two of his on youtube, just as a starting point if nothing else, and going from there to read about the various things he brings up.
He is derided as he's a journalist rather than an academic but I don't think he ever pushed that his ideas are absolute truth. Also he's an Ayahuasca advocate, which unfairly brings further derision. He'll talk about more far out theories too if with the right audience.
In that case, I recommend you check out Erich von Danniken[0], Giorgio Tsoukalos[1] and Charles Dawson[2].
They have some original thoughts that have been wildly popular. Or are you saying that if something is "popular" that it's "conformity" and should be rejected for being conformist?
If it's generally accepted (as bible dogma in the middle ages was), then it must be a false flag designed to hoodwink the masses into accepting false information, because no amount of consensus is enough. amirite?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_D%C3%A4niken
Still valuable, still rigorous… but no ground truth is possible.
Oof. I have bad news for you about science in general.
More germane to the point, it's probably better to think about "ground truth" as "sufficiently reasonable approximation for the grain that I need to operate at".
Carbon 14.
So while we can reasonably ascertain the age of (organic) artifacts, it does not answer the questions being asked.
In this case, the author being discussed seems to literally looking for non-material/"Otherworld" based explanations for history. I think he would not be insulted, to be called anti-science. There might be something unfortunate going on in broader discussion around the phrase "anti-science" (I'm not ready to defend that too strongly either way), but in this case it seems pretty apt.
There's a bit of a split between archaeologists that merely think Hancock is an indication that Archaeology's public outreach is insufficient and those that think he's actively harming public perceptions of the field with misinformation. For the record, I'm more in the former camp.
Anyway, the SAA (an archaeology trade group) devoted 27 pages of a magazine issue to discussing that split and picking apart the arguments in one of Hancocks's recent books. You can find the magazine here to decide for yourself: http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=16146&i=634462&p...
For fairness, here's Hancock's response: https://grahamhancock.com/saa-archaeological-record-response...
> [Graham's blog post] Before closing, however, I’m understandably very happy to quote here the useful concise summary of America Before given by anthropologist Jeb J. Card in his contribution to the issue (pp 26-30):
>> [Card's review] Attempting to critique America Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilization by Graham Hancock (2019) using the criteria of professional archaeology is doomed to failure, as his goals are outside of the materialist practice of scientific archaeology. In a nutshell, Hancock argues that an ancient civilization of the Pleistocene emerged in North America that was based not on material technology but on psychic/spiritual knowledge. It became a global sea-based society comparable with the late pre-Industrial British Empire. These Ice Age Americans (spoiler: Atlanteans) foresaw a cosmic disaster and spread memetic seeds of sacred knowledge of geometry, astronomy, and the Otherworld and how souls may navigate it around the world. After this civilization was destroyed by impact events from a comet during the Younger Dryas, these advanced people came to be remembered as magicians and gods. Seeking this knowledge today is a path to truly understanding reality and the spiritual elements denied by materialist science.”
> [Graham's blog post] Card’s precis of my arguments is fair, and in general I’d say that his analysis of my work and its function is much more carefully thought through than that of any of the other contributors.
If the author thinks the reviewer pointing to psychic Atlanteans in his work is treating him more fairly than the rest, that doesn't bode well for the overall work.